GREYHOUND RESCUE
Fostering and re-homing greyhounds in the South Lake District, Cumbria

Lena

Lena arrived on Thursday 23rd May 2013
and was adopted by ourselves.

Lena's arrival and a brief history Click images for a larger view

Lena is a pretty white and black greyhound who didn't make the grade for racing.
She was born on the 9th June 2011 and weighs about 27k.Lena is a very beautiful greyhound who has a sweet nature, is a very affectionate girl and loves to play. She is quite a character!
She is super with children and okay with other breeds of dogs both large and small.
She is spayed, microchipped and travels well in the car

Lena was adopted by ourselves.

Lena's Diary

23rd May 2013

24th May 2013

25th May 2013
This morning Lena gave me a wonderful welcome when I let her out the kennel for a run around the garden. Once she'd let off some steam we introduced her to all the other greyhounds, both her and all the other foster dogs wore muzzles especially as Lena is young and can therefore be a little giddy. She got on well with them and enjoyed exploring the garden with them.
She ate her breakfast in the kennel with Sooty. She ate all hers and that which Sooty had left. Once she's had an hour being quiet in the kennel we let her in the garden with the others where she stayed till the sun was beginning to go down. She loved laying on the duvet on the decking and soaking up the sun. She even tried to get Sooty to play with her, but Sooty just stood there and ignored her - she was having none of that nonsense!
This afternoon she found a kitchen roll in the new shed Stuart is building and she thought this fun. I spotted her running across the grass looking like the 'Andrex' puppy. She looked very funny, but Stuart was not amused!6th June 2013
Lena is really quite settled here now and loves being amongst the other greyhounds. A favourite is to share the duvet and beds we put on the decking in front of the summer house on warm sunny days where they all relax in the sunshine and watch the world go by.15th June 2013
Today was the day we completed all the adoption forms and made Lena (Stuart's 'little princess') ours. Here she will stay where we hope she will have a long and happy life with us and all our greyhounds.7th January 2014
We took Lena to the vet this morning to see if she needed a stitch in the 'nick' in her side where one of the other dogs caught her as it was telling her not to be so giddy. I didn't think she needed any stitches and thank goodness she didn't, but the vet shaved all the hair from around it to stop it getting stuck in the scab and taking longer to heal. She weighed in at 27.2k21st January 2014
Lena is staying with Wendy while we are on holiday in South Africa. This evening she sent us a message saying Lena is lovely!! No trouble at all. 16th February 2014
This afternoon Lena's litter brother Billy arrived here to be fostered until we can find him a forever home. They remembered each other and she remembered the gentleman who raised them all from being small pups. It's so nice when dogs who have known each other in the past recognise each other - they seem to greet each other differently to a dog they've never met before.11th May 2014
This afternoon Lena went to her 'Auntie' Wendy's for the afternoon and staying for a 'sleep over'. She loves visiting Wendy because she takes her up to see and feed the pigs. Lena is afraid of nothing and tries to lick the pigs, and if they come out of their field into the grassed one Lena will try and get them to play with her. This Wendy says is quite funny to watch because when the pigs get fed up they wander back in their field and stare at her through the gate. She then has a good run in the fields with Wendy's greyhound called Coco. Lena loves Coco and they get on well together, and Lena gets spoilt at Wendy's!
It was at Wendy's that she learnt to climb on the settee for a cuddle, something she has never attempted to do at home, perhaps she feels she is too low down in the pack to try it, so it came as a bit of a surprise to Stuart when she crawled up next to him one night.10th June 2014
This morning Lena went to the vet for her annual check-up and booster inoculation - all was well.27th June 2014
Lena spent the afternoon at Wendy's again today and met Brogan, a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Instantly friends they went into the big field for a wander and run around.13th July 2014
Lena went for an afternoon out with Wendy this afternoon who let her have a run in her big field. Lena as always loved it and ran until she couldn't run any more, so much so she lay in the shade under a bush to get her breath back and cool down.2nd March 2015
We took Lena to the vets this morning for a check up to try and determine why she isn't as bouncy as normal, and why over the past week or so she yelps when she gets out of her bed. Nothing untowards was found so it's Metacam for a few days to see if it is a soft tissue injury. If it is she should feel better shortly, if not then we are to take her back again for further investigation.10th March 2015
Thankfully Lena is back to her bright and happy self again, so perhaps she strained something and the Metacam sorted it out.9th January 2016
This afternoon Wendy called in and collected Lena because she is looking after her while we are away on holiday. Lena was very excited to meet her and never even looked back as she was leaving the house. I suppose to Lena she is just having another afternoon or stop-over with Wendy as she's done in the past not realising she will be away a month. With 3 foster dogs and Lena leaving today I felt very lost and the house was very quiet without them.14th July 2016
Lena went to the vets this afternoon to try and establish why she's been so poorly over the past few days. The vet examined her all over and took her temperature which was 103.8°. The vet booked her in for xrays tomorrow and suggested we give her Metacam tonight to help bring her temperature down and ease the softness on her legs which were giving her discomfort.15th July 2016
Lena went to the vets this morning for xrays on her legs, chest and abdomen. When we got the results later in the day they said her chest was okay and there were no signs of anything obviously wrong on the xrays, but she does have some oedema in her front legs showing a sluggish circulation. Marie's disease, which the vet said she showed the symptoms of was ruled out because bones have a very distinctive appearance when they have that disease and hers showed to be normal. With Marie's disease ruled out blood tests were taken to be sent off to the laboratory, and they also wanted urine samples to be sent off, but Lena wouldn't oblige in this respect so we are to get some on Monday morning and take them in.
With the delay in sending off the urine samples we won't get the full results till the end of the week so we are to continue with the daily Metacam dose until we get the results back and have a better idea of the problem.30th August 2016
This morning Lena went to the vets for a check-up where she weighed in at 25.9kg. She has been diagnosed as having 'Pyrexia of unknown origin', which may have involved an infection in her small intestines. Now she is a bit more stable having had fresh pork and potatoes for 3 weeks and Burns Pork and Potato with fresh pork for a week the vet suggested we try with other foods, one at a time and slowly to see how she reacts to them in an attempt to balance her diet to keep her well.
As we were concerned with her teeth having had no chews for over a month and her breath beginning to smell the vet suggested pigs ears, but not rawhide chews, so when we got home we ordered her some.31st August 2016
Lena was looking so well this morning she asked to be taken for a walk with Debi and her husband who are volunteers and come weekly to walk the dogs. Apparently, she enjoyed her walk and upon returning had a drink of water and went to her bed to rest.1st September 2016
This morning we gave Lena a pigs ear and thankfully her gums diidn't bleed as they can do sometime when a dog has one for the first time.2nd September 2016
This morning Lena seemed very stiff and sluggish getting off her coolaro bed first thing this morning. Her first stretch of the day was done very gingerly and she very carefully walked through the kitchen into the garden.
She ate her breakfast of Burns Pork and Potato with fresh pork but remained very quiet and kept to herself most of the day, not wanting to join in with the others or going to see who had come to the front door as she used to do. Oh dear, it's all happening again and she looks so sad and forlorn. When she stood during the day I ran my hands over her to see if she flinched anywhere and as I gently ran them down her spine asserting a little pressure, all was okay till I got to her rear end then she bent her back legs and dropped her rear end to move away from my hands. This shows this is where she is feeling poorly and I think it's the region of her small intestines.
When I went for a nap later she would normally climb on the bed with me and snuggle up, but not today, she came to the side of the bed she normally jumps up from and attempted to get on but never and turned away to settle on her coolaroo bed in the corner of the room.3rd September 2016
Lena is still out of sorts and we've decided it must have been the pig's ear she ate as that was the only thing she's had that was different to the past month or so. Pig's ears are therefore, a no, no for her from now on and once she's back to feeling better we will try something else.4th September 2016
This morning Lena was much happier and less sluggish when she stretched and went in the garden to do her toilet first thing.
This morning for breakfast she had Burns Pork & Potato with a little forked Wainwrights Duck so we will see how she is with that.
She seemed okay during the day so she had the same this evening. I'm going to keep her on this to see if she reacts to it.
This evening when the door bell went she got off her bed, jumped down the step and went to see who it was - a huge improvement because when she isn't feeling well she stays in her bed and shows no interest in what is going on around her.
We've been told Lena has had a fever of an unknown origin, but despite that she continues to baffle us with her health and we've been asked to monitor it.31st December 2016
As you know our Lena hasn't been well for some time. At first our vets thought it was Maries Disease but the xrays proved negative. Her high temperature was put down to an unknown origin, her loose stools to an infection in her small intestine and her slightly swollen and sensitive legs the vets were not sure about so asked us to keep an eye on it. She's had xrays, scans, biopsies, blood and urine tests and still we couldn't get a diagnosis of what was wrong.
We've been monitoring her symptoms ever since and recording things looking for something that would give us a clue. When she woke in the morning and had a job to walk to ease her pain we gave her Metacam and having rested during the day she was fine by the evening. We discovered that if we gave her Metacam daily she was back to the happy bouncy Lena we knew. When I stopped it within a couple of days she was again struggling to walk and arching her back. In early December we took her back to the vets with the information we'd gathered and not having any Metacam for nearly 2 days. A thorough examination showed her bones were sore, not the joints but the bones so they wanted her back in for another xray and biopsy. Blood was taken and a sample of the fluid in her elbow joint was sent off for testing. Again nothing concrete came back so Marcelle our vet at Highgate went away determined to discover what was going on. We received a call this morning asking us to take Lena in on Tuesday for another blood test because they wanted to test it for Lymes disease. We've been looking into this today and from what we've read and seen on video about canine lymes disease she seems to have the symptoms. From what we understand only a small percentage of dogs become ill from it and it's treated with strong antibiotics. We will get the blood results back on Wednesday. 21st February 2017
Tests have discovered Lena may be suffering from Immune Mediated Polyarthropathy which causes her immune system to attack her joints. As a result she is being placed on Immune Suppresor Steroids, just a low dose for a month to see how things go. At the vets she weighed in at 25.6 kg.13th June 2017
The vet was very pleased with Lena when she saw her today. Lena is back to her normal bouncy self but is still searching for food all the time - she always seems to be hungry no matter how much we give her. As a result the vet asked us to reduce her daily dose of steroids to 2 a day for 30 days and then drop the dose to 1 a day till the tablets are finished then speak to the vet again. We mentioned she'd had a couple of leakage accidents while sleeping on our bed, usually in the evening necessitating a bed change prior to us getting in it. The vet thought this may be the steroids so we will be watching for this. I've not noticed it on any other dog beds she sleeps in unless I'm missing it and it's only ever in the evening. She is now banned from sleeping on our bed which she's not happy about.

Click images for a larger view

29th May 2013

Enjoying the sunshine on the
decking in front of our summer
house - 6th June 2013